I reported how Sushil, who arrived in the UK in 2005 and has been living in Sheffield since
2011, had been moved to Brook House Immigration Centre near Gatwick airport without
explanation.

Sushil fears for his safety and his life back in his own country. When I first wrote about
Sushil here, I explained how, as a Buddhist monk in Chittagong, Bangladesh, he says he was
targeted by local fundamentalist Muslims, who forbade him to campaign for girls' education
and began persecuting him.

Campaigners claim that Sushil is in greater danger because of the ‘potentially illegal’
conduct of the Home Office in making officials in Bangladesh aware of his case. Sushil
expressed these same fears when he spoke to me from inside Morton Hall Immigration
Centre before he was deported:

“I gave all the evidence to the Home Office, but they do not believe me and they have
disclosed all my information to the Bangladeshi authorities, so I fear for my safety. My life
is in danger, my life is not safe, if the government doesn’t imprison me, the fundamentalist
muslims will kill me.”

There is further concern that Sushil’s claim for asylum in the UK reached
the European Court of Human Rights last year, but the UK government offered to settle it
domestically. Campaigners say that the Home Office then refused Sushil’s claim and
appeals and placed him in detention.

Campaigner Katelyn McKeown claims that the Home Office has behaved “immorally” and
with “sneaky actions” in order to continue their plans to deport Sushil. She points out that
the Home Office also refused to consider Sushil’s fresh claim which was sent on 27 August by MP Meg Munn’s office to try and halt the deportation.

“It is illegal to deport someone with a claim still outstanding, however the Home Office say
that the claim was received, but stored as a file copy rather than considered. This is morally
wrong if not illegal.”

Jim Steinke, Chief Executive of the Northern Refugee Centre agrees:

“I very rarely get involved directly in campaigns about individual deportation issues, but I
feel very strongly about the potential illegality of this removal. The importance of a robust
immigration and asylum system depends on the Home Office working within legal
boundaries, or the whole system becomes corrupted.”

During the early hours of Monday morning, Sushil was taken to Heathrow airport. Katelyn McKeown takes up the story:

“Sushil rang me from a guard’s phone at 2.45am and 4am on Monday morning absolutely terrified. I could hear the guards laughing and joking in the background. Sushil
was given no notice of the flight. I spoke to him many times on Sunday and he had no
removal directions.

“My colleague Sarah Eldridge from City of Sanctuary Sheffield also spoke to Brook House
Immigration Removal Centre on Sunday and they said no removal orders had been
issued.

“Solicitors confirmed that it is a legal requirement for deportees to be given 72 hours
notice. The Home Office, however claim that Sushil resisted being deported on Thursday
morning so special rules apply.”

McKeown says that Sushil offered no resistance: “Sushil said 'No thank you, I have made a fresh claim today,' when
the guards came to his cell on Wednesday 27th and they left. He offered no physical
resistance and he was aware that as a fresh claim had been submitted it would have been
illegal to deport him while it was outstanding.”

McKeown went on:
“Sushil's life is in danger in his country. He will be captured and tortured. Sushil had made
a fresh claim for asylum on Wednesday 27th August but this claim is outstanding. You
cannot deport someone with a claim outstanding.”

Sarah Eldridge, from City of Sanctuary Sheffield, delivered a petition with more than 1000
signatures and a copy of Sushil’s fresh claim to the Home Office on Monday afternoon.

Campaigners were hoping that the fresh claim would be considered and that Sushil’s
deportation would be stopped at Doha where his flight was due to arrive before he would
go on to Bangladesh. However, the deportation was not stopped. McKeown says:

“Sushil phoned me from Doha airport on Monday afternoon. He says thank you to
everyone for trying to help. There was no halt on the flight so he returned back to Bangladesh at 2.30am on Tuesday morning. This should not have happened, but it did. Now the 1060 people who petitioned the Home
Secretary and got no acknowledgement or response deserve to know why.”

She added: ”Sushil was absolutely terrified when I spoke to him during Sunday night. His worst fears
were coming true and he and I felt completely powerless to do anything about it. Solicitors' offices and airline customer services were closed and it was not possible to
alert many people at that time on a Sunday morning. It seemed like the worst kind of dirty
tactics were being used but there was nothing we could do.”